2016-2017 Performance Season: Performing Labors

Performing artists work. The making of performance, whether as performer, designer, of master electrician in the lighting grid, requires research and analysis, the development of technique and craft over arcs of years, and skills of patience, collaboration and improvisation. In this season, THDA is calling attention to the ways we work, the values and in/visibility of labor, and the disciplinary powers invested in performing labor. We are also, in our productions, representing labor and issues that workers face currently, locally, and globally. Our season invites conversations among students and colleagues about work - purposeful, compulsory, under-compensated, stolen, joyous - and the ways workers, we, wrest meaning from workaday lives.

Fall 2016 Performance Season

FALL DANCE CONCERT

The Macalester Fall Dance Concert features choreography by faculty members Patricia Brown, Brian J. Evans, Krista Langberg, and Jill Lile, as well as new works by student choreographers. The title of this show is "Bodies in the Balance."

Performances are December 2 at 7:30 PM and December 3 at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM

Performing Work!

Presentations of several student solos interspersed with the work being done in dance classes as well as performance classes. You are welcome to have an inside seat on the processes of making and creating work here in the Theatre and Dance Department. These offerings are during the Family Fest weekend, September 30 and October 1 at 6:30PM. Just an hour each night to share the "labor".

Urinetown: The Musical

Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001 on Broadway with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. The show also parodies musicals such as the Threepenny Opera, The Cradle Will Rock and Les Miserables, and the Broadway musical itself as a form.

Performances are November 4 - 5, 10-12 at 7:30PM and November 6 Matinee at 2:00PM

Spring 2017 Performance Season

Medea- By Samuel Barber

We will be co-presenting Medea with the Music Department's full orchestra. The music commissioned for Martha Graham's company in 1946 will be presented along with original dances choreographed by THDA Director of Dance Wynn Fricke and text written and directed by Guest Artist Barbara Berlovitz. This production only has two performances.

Performances are February 17, 18

Acute Care: performing emotional Labors

Most of us will be cared for by nurses at some point in our lives. Every nurse holds specialized knowledge about medicine, health, and the emotional straits of people seeking treatment, getting well, not getting well. Based on oral histories with nurses in the Twin Cities -- a major site of both healthcare innovation and nurses' union organizing -- Acute Care is a new performance piece about the complex work of nursing in contemporary medicine.This is a new work that is devised and directed by Beth Cleary. It will be a large cast with many opportunities for students and staff to participate as well connecting to the larger Twin Cities community.

Performances are April 6-8, (Possible tour April 12-15)

Spring Dance Concert

The Macalester Spring Dance Concert features new works by students and guest choreographer Darrius Strong, whose style blends hip hop and contemporary dance. His Twin Cities-based company, STRONGmovement, collaboratively creates and shares stories through dance.

Performances are April 28 at 7:30 PM and April 29 at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM